Chapter
XXXVI.—Christ’s Refutation of the Sadducees, and
Affirmation of Catholic Doctrine.

Let us now see whether (the Lord) has not imparted
greater strength to our doctrine in breaking down the subtle cavil of
the Sadducees. Their great object, I take it, was to do away altogether
with the resurrection, for the Sadducees in fact did not admit any
salvation either for the soul or the flesh;75207520 Compare
Tertullian’s De Præscript. Hæret. c. xxxiii.
and therefore, taking the strongest case they could for impairing the
credibility of the resurrection, they adapted an argument from it in
support of the question which they started. Their specious inquiry
concerned the flesh, whether or not it would be subject to marriage
after the resurrection; and they assumed the case of a woman who had
married seven brothers, so that it was a doubtful point to which of
them she should be restored.75217521Matt. xxii. 23–32; Mark xii.
18–27; Luke xx. 27–38. Now, let the
purport both of the question and the answer be kept steadily in view,
and the discussion is settled at once. For since the Sadducees indeed
denied the resurrection, whilst the Lord affirmed it; since, too, (in
affirming it,) He reproached them as being both ignorant of the
Scriptures—those, of course which had declared the
resurrection—as well as incredulous of the power of God, though,
of course, effectual to raise the dead, and lastly, since He
immediately added the words, “Now, that the dead are
raised,”75227522Luke xx. 37. (speaking) without
misgiving, and affirming the very thing which was being denied, even
the resurrection of the dead before Him who is “the God of the
living,”—(it clearly follows) that He affirmed this verity
in the precise sense in which they were denying it; that it was, in
fact, the resurrection of the two natures of man. Nor does it follow,
(as they would have it,) that because Christ denied that men would
marry, He therefore proved that they would not rise again. On the
contrary, He called them “the children of the
resurrection,”75237523Ver.
36. in a certain sense
having by the resurrection to undergo a birth; and after that they
marry no more, but in their risen life are “equal unto the
angels,”75247524Ver.
36. inasmuch as they
are not to marry, because they are not to die, but are destined to pass
into the angelic state by putting on the raiment of incorruption,
although with a change in the substance which is restored to life.
Besides, no question could be raised whether we are to marry or die
again or not, without involving in doubt the restoration most
especially of that substance which has a particular relation both to
death and marriage—that is, the flesh. Thus, then, you have the
Lord affirming against the Jewish heretics what is now
en572countering the denial of
the Christian Sadducees—the resurrection of the entire
man.